EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
- Revealed: How US State Department 'Twists Arms' on Monsanto's Behalf
Popular content
Today's Top News
Defense Role in CIA's Secret Jails
Three human rights groups have obtained documents that confirm US Department of Defense involvement in the CIA's "ghost" detention program, and the existence of secret prisons at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
The documents obtained as part of a long-running legal battle using freedom-of-information laws were released by the Department of Defense to Amnesty International USA, the Centre for Constitutional Rights and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice last week.
The groups received about 1000 documents from Defence out of more than 12,000 that have been identified as coming within their request but which are still being withheld by agencies including the CIA and the Department of Justice.
The groups said these documents confirm the existence of secret prisons at Bagram and in Iraq; affirm the Defense Department's co-operation with the CIA's "ghost" detention program; and show one case where Defense sought to delay the release of Guantanamo prisoners who were scheduled to be sent home by a month and a half in order to avoid bad press.
The document from the transport division recommended "hold(ing) off on return flights for 45 days or so until things die down. Otherwise we are likely to have hero's welcomes awaiting the detainees when they arrive."
The email also recommended transfer in a smaller, more discreet plane. Around that time a UN report on Guantanamo had been released.
The groups said the documents also revealed that Defence had a policy not to register prisoners with the Red Cross for 14 days and sometimes for 30 days in the interests of collecting intelligence and that this policy was known to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"These newly released documents confirm our suspicion that the tentacles of the CIA's abusive program reached across agency lines," said Margaret Satterthwaite, director of New York University's International Human Rights Clinic. "In fact, it is increasingly obvious that Defense officials engaged in legal gymnastics to find ways to co-operate with the CIA's activities."
The head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrat Patrick Leahy, is pushing for the establishment of a "truth commission" answerable to both chambers of Congress to investigate the actions of the Bush administration and departments.
Senator Leahy called his proposal a "middle ground" between those critics of the Bush administration seeking to prosecute officials, and others wishing to concentrate on the future as opposed to investigating the past.
But on Sunday, President Barack Obama was non-committal. While he repeated his line that torture was wrong and would cease under his Administration, he also noted that he was of a mind to look forward not backwards.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
22 Comments so far
Show All"Senator Leahy called his proposal a "middle ground" between those critics of the Bush administration seeking to prosecute officials, and others wishing to concentrate on the future as opposed to investigating the past."
I WONDER WHAT THE MIDDLE GROUND WILL BE TOO. ???
The middle ground is wagging their feeble limp fingers at torturers, war criminals and evisceraters of the Constitution and saying bad, bad, bad, while letting them walk away from their crimes with no jail time to maxi mansions in Texas, California and south America. But you knew that already Jim, right?
President seems to WANT to correct all that has gone wrong in our government, but he acts as though he's been hog-tied, stifled, and stymied at every turn. Indeed, if the right-wing has its way, he will make a dismal showing. Republicans are so bound to party unity they'd MUCH rather see the country fail than cooperate to overcome the obstacles we face.
"Republicans are so bound to party unity they'd MUCH rather see the country fail than cooperate to overcome the obstacles we face."
I agree with you here 100%.
Problem is Dimocraps are beholden to the EXACT nasty coalition of Wall St bankers, corporations, and extreme far right wing Zionists as Repiglicons, ie you can expect NO real change from either party.
These abuses are not news. When revealed YEARS ago those doing so were labled as Anti-American.
In essence those making the charges of Anti-Americanism because they could not handle the truth argue that "Americanism" means living a LIE.
Indeed, and I think a truth commission is thin stew, why should the rich and powerful get away with quite literal torture without responsibly facing the consequences. Does anyone remember how the Republicans ran on a "responsibility" plat form after the Clinton years? I do, and now who are the first people to evade responsibility for FAR bigger crimes than an extra martial blow job? Republicans... SIGH!
Dear President Obama
I think you better look back a little. That giant steam roller is heading our way and you seem like the only person that can either slow it down or stop it.
If Obama doesn't allow Leahy some teeth in any Congressional Investigation, or better yet, hearings, it may be out of his hands ...
UN Rapporteur: Initiate criminal proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld now
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004250
Then how would that look? Not to good, I'm afraid.
Look up truth and reconcilliation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_(South_Africa)
It's not a panacea, and I can't Bush and his gang sitting down with his victims and their relatives in Iraq (so far they show no remorse whatever). We have laws to deal with this, and if we still refuse to adhere to them then others in the world may well find ways to prosecute -- and we would remain a pariah, even while we beg for help as the economy tanks. Neither can we expect people in the US to have respect for or adhere to law: the operative word is anomie -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomie .
People inside the Pentagon and CIA directly responsible need to get fired in the most high profile manner allowing for a maximum of public outrage. Of course, the immediate thought is the same guy that authorized torture and is proud of it is likely to be the one and the same guy authorizing secret prisons. And if the press interviews him about this issue, he will probably be proud of the secret prisons also.
And I guess that is the point. Dick Cheney is far to confident and arrogant in violating the Geneva Conventions. Publically crushing Cheney would go a long way toward underscoring the truth that no one, not even the Big Dick, is above the law.
Jarhead If all of you would read just the first one hundred pages of Family Secrets you would fully unstand how and why no politician will bother to do anything as long as George Bush, the old man is still living. The CIA is the boss and he is the whip. He, as always has controlled them for fifty-eight years. Waterboard him and Cheney and others until they tell the world about John Kennedy. That is why others are very afraid.tHE REPUGS WERE BEHIND THAT AND ALSO 9/11.
Jarhead - who's the author of Family Secrets?
Let's rename "Defense" back to its original and more accurate name "War". Better yet, "Atrocities".
DOD, CIA, NSA, Citibank, Raytheon all one big cess-pool.
Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers
The ACLU has obtained thousands of unredacted documents regarding the military's internal investigations into charges of detainee abuse as a result of our ongoing FOIA litigation. The uncensored documents are from the Church Report and five separate CID investigations of deaths and abuse in Iraq , Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay .
The unredacted pages from the Church report were previously classified. Describing investigations of deaths at Bagram in 2002, the report refers to alleged behavior of military personnel as "clearly abusive, and clearly not in keeping with any approved interrogation policy or guidance." The report notes that "In both instances, the deaths followed interrogation sessions in which unauthorized techniques were allegedly employed, but in both cases, these sessions were followed by further alleged abusive behavior outside of the interrogation booth."
The ACLU also obtained reports of investigations into deaths that took place in Afganistan and Iraq – as well as Abu Ghraib abuses. Although several have been reported on already, this is the first time the military investigations have been released in full. They include:
Investigation of two deaths at Bagram. Both detainees were determined to have been killed by pulmonary embolism caused as a result of standing chained in place, sleep depravation and dozens of beatings by guards and possibly interrogators. (Also reveals the use of torture at Gitmo and American-Afghani prisons in Kabul )
Investigation into the homicide or involuntary manslaughter of detainee Dilar Dababa by U.S. forces in 2003 in Iraq .
Investigation launched after allegations that an Iraqi prisoner was subjected to torture and abuse at "The Disco" (located in the Special Operations Force Compound in Mosul Airfield, Mosul , Iraq ). The abuse consisted of filling his jumpsuit with ice, then hosing him down and making him stand for long periods of time, sometimes in front of an air conditioner; forcing him to lay down and drink water until he gagged, vomited or choked, having his head banged against a hot steel plate while hooded and interrogated; being forced to do leg lifts with bags of ice placed on his ankles, and being kicked when he could not do more.
Investigation of allegations of torture and abuse that took place in 2003 at Abu Ghraib.
Investigation that established probable cause to believe that U.S. forces committed homicide in 2003 when they participated in the binding of detainee Abed Mowhoush in a sleeping bag during an interrogation, causing him to die of asphyxiation.
The Church Report documents are available at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/38710lgl20090211.html
Paul Siemering
next to his wars, most odious and loathsome of bush's years were the secret prisons, renditions, tortures. rounding up innocent people for no reason, without any charges, snd locking them up forever. there are still somewhere between 30 and 60 thousand people being "detained" without charges in the gulag. if obama tells us lets forget about them, maybe we need to point out that we are looking to the future of our prisoners and their families.
the past eight years we have endured need to be looked at. he's gotta stop using that "future not the past" crap. we need to prosecute and jail those people for messing up our country and our constitution or there won't even be a future for any of us to look at.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjndTXyk3mw&feature=related
Reminds me of French artist's Boris Vian's famous decades-old song "Le Deserteur": That scum that works for the CIA just did it without refusing to obey, right?
Lyrics in English:
Mr. President
I'm writing you a letter
that perhaps you will read
If you have the time.
I've just received
my call-up papers
to leave for the front
Before Wednesday night.
Mr. President
I do not want to go
I am not on this earth
to kill wretched people.
It's not to make you mad
I must tell you
my decision is made
I am going to desert.
Since I was born
I have seen my father die
I have seen my brothers leave
and my children cry.
My mother has suffered so,
that she is in her grave
and she laughs at the bombs
and she laughs at the worms.
When I was a prisoner
they stole my wife
they stole my soul
and all my dear past.
Early tomorrow morning
I will shut my door
on these dead years
I will take to the road.
I will beg my way along
on the roads of France
from Brittany to Provence
and I will cry out to the people:
Refuse to obey
refuse to do it
don't go to war
refuse to go.
If blood must be given
go give your own
you are a good apostle
Mr. President.
If you go after me
warn your police
that I'll be unarmed
and that they can shoot.
Boris Vian (1920-1959), a French engineer by education, gifted with amazing talents, was at any one time a poet, a novelist, a musician, a jazz trumpeter, a singer, an actor; he also was a pacifist, an anti-power genius with une sensibilité à fleur de peau.
Too many times Obama comes across as a fraud. Obamacain.
I haven't read the following yet, but figured to add the link for an additional article on the topic of this CD page.
"Secret Detention, Extraordinary Rendition, & Torture: New Evidence of DOD Cooperation with CIA Ghost Detention Program"
by Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), U.S., ccrjustice.org, Feb 12 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12285
pooop!! poo poo!! poopy poop!! BUILDING SEVEN!!!! BUILDING SEVEN ! BUILDING SEVEN!!!
BUILDING SEVEN! BUILDING SEVEN!! BUILDING SEVEN BUILDING SEVEN< BUILDING, BUILDING, SEVEN SEVEN!!!
BUILDING seven.
say it enough times...
One must wonder what laws Obama is willing to break to obtain his objectives if he is willing to condone the the evils of Bush's torturers and his secret gulags and simply "look forward not backwards".
He was elected because he campaigned for change. His blindness to what the American people want is simply more of the same arrogance from the ruling elite.